William Byron made quite the statement Sunday. Since the race at Atlanta in July, Byron and his Hendrick Motorsports team had not finished better than 14th.
Since he began his NASCAR Cup series career in 2018, he only had one top five finish in his 25 starts on road and street courses, that being a fifth at COTA in the spring. And he had never led a lap at Watkins Glen.
That all changed Sunday. Byron led a race high 66 of 90 laps in route to winning the Go Bowling at the Glen cruising across the line 2.6 seconds ahead of pole sitter Denny Hamlin. The win is also his fifth of the season after Byron came into the year with four career wins spread out over three years.
It puts Byron as the favorite as NASCAR’s Playoffs start in just two weeks.
“It feels really good, man,” Byron said. “You know, just a huge credit to the race team behind me. I want to thank Max Papis. This first road course win, we’ve worked years and years for this. Thanks to him. I know he’s watching back home.
“I don’t know what it means and all that. I don’t read into that. But I think it shows that when we’re at our best, we can perform like this.”
Behind Hamlin Christopher Bell, AJ Allmendinger and Ty Gibbs rounded out the top five.
“Yeah, I’m happy with my day,” Hamlin said. “It takes me a while to get going, and with McDowell there at the beginning, like he’s just ready and he’s on kill, and I’m kind of working my way into it. I just lost the lead because I looked at the 24’s back bumper the rest of the day.”
Indeed, last week’s winner on the road course at Indy looked to be the class of the field early on. After starting third, Michael McDowell charged to the front leading 17 laps in route to a Stage 1 win. But penalties on two pit stops left McDowell working to try and rally back to the front. The engine in his Ford expired however, on lap 74 sending him to the garage and leaving him as the only DNF of the race.
For Hendrick Motorsports overall it wasn’t all good news.
Kyle Larson, who won the last two races at Watkins Glen was running near the front until a speeding penalty on lap 54 and the race’s only caution on lap 57 combined to force Larson to start at the rear of the field and had to settle for 26th.
That caution was brought out when another Hendrick driver Chase Elliott ran out of fuel on lap 55. Desperately needing a win to make the Playoffs he finished seventh in Stage 2 on lap 40, but a miscalculation by his crew left him stranded on the track on lap 57 bringing out what turned out to be the races only caution. He finished the day 32nd one lap down and nothing short of a win will get the driver who missed a total of 7 races this season into the Playoffs.
The team’s fourth driver, Alex Bowman finished a quiet 23rd and will also need a win if he hopes to make the Playoffs.
Martin Truex Jr. was sixth, Chris Buescher seventh with Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney rounding out the top 10.
With finishes of 15th and 21st respectively Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick locked themselves into the Playoffs. Bubba Wallace, who finished 12th holds the final spot 23 points above the cutline over Ty Gibbs.
The final race of NASCAR’s regular season comes at Daytona International Speedway next Saturday night. Martin Truex Jr. leads the regular season standings over Hamlin by 39, and isn’t ready to cede the regular season title to his JGR teammate just yet.
“I mean, it’s doable,” Hamlin said. “You’ve got to have things go your way, but yeah, if we can talk NASCAR into those 25 points, they took away earlier in the season, we’d really make it interesting.”
Race Results
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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